reason that very few foreign nations among whom the book will circulate

can read in any language but their own; whereas we do not write for a

particular class or sect or nation, but to take in the whole world.

We do not object to criticism; and we do not expect that the critic will

read the book before writing a notice of it: We do not even expect the

reviewer of the book will say that he has not read it. No, we have no

anticipations of anything unusual in this age of criticism. But if the

Jupiter, Who passes his opinion on the novel, ever happens to peruse it

in some weary moment of his subsequent life, we hope that he will not be

the victim of a remorse bitter but too late.

One word more. This is--what it pretends to be a joint production, in

the conception of the story, the exposition of the characters, and in its

literal composition. There is scarcely a chapter that does not bear the

marks of the two writers of the book. S. L. C.

C. D. W.

The Gilded Age